


Take Me Away To Some Place Real

by plinys



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, post-BotFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2782331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adjusting to her new found princess-hood is not easy, but the burdened is lessened by the presence of Tauriel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Away To Some Place Real

**Author's Note:**

> For the HRBB 14, based on this art [like goes here] .
> 
> Sorry for the delay in posting this up, things got a bit crazy with me studying for finals over here!

To her love, their first meeting was probably something of no consequence, a brief moment in the great expanse of forever in which a young girl looked upon creatures that were too precious of her eyes.

Sigrid had thought to ask once or twice, if she-elf had even noticed the child that had been sitting upon the ship that day, hiding behind her Da’s pant leg and staring out at the world with wide-eyed wonder.

Though imagining what her answer would be had been enough to discourage any thought of voicing those questions.

Instead she held tight to the memory of that day, as she had when she was just a girl, telling her brother who then had more than likely to not even understand her babbling, about the great warrior from the wood, the she-elf with hair like fire.

The vision of that elf would stay in her dreams, haunting her, until the day she saw her again.

With battle raging outside her front door, dwarves hiding in her home, and dragons flying through the sky- her only concern was for an elf named Tauriel.

It that moment, a moment she ought to have worried might have been her last; the only thing she could manage to feel was pure wonder.

\---

There’s fire, fire everything- no matter how many sleeping draught she takes, no matter how many night she stays up trying to keep her dreams at bay, they are still there every night- screaming voices, the burning of flesh, and the shadow of a dragon in the sky above her.

They’re safe now, safe in a home much like a castle, so different from what she had always known.

Some nights it feels like too much, or not enough.  

Her dressing gowns feel too soft, her room too cold, without her family close by.

Luckily Tilda doesn’t complain too much when she sneaks into her room, just rolls over to give her space on the already too large bed and says, “nightmares again,” as though there could be one night that she makes it through the terrors.

She doesn’t answer the question, but they both know the answer.

\---

Her Da - the King, she supposed that was what she ought to call him now - had been talking with a group of elves in the main hall for what felt like hours.

Sigrid only knew this because she had been lurking about outside for just as long.

She’s been on a bench just outside, waiting for their meeting to end and the elves to return to their woods, ever since Bain had muttered the news over breakfast, resenting the fact that he hadn’t been allowed into the meeting.

Not because she had business with her father, though that had been her excuse the last time a worried gardener (because they had gardeners now) had appeared to check on the princess, for she was a princess and people had a habit of worrying about her odd tendencies now more than they ever had before.

No, the real reason she is lurking outside was much more personal.

She had meant to ask after everything had happened if the elf that had healed the poor dwarf in their old home had survived, she had even tried to ask her father, but he hadn’t been there at the time- and had no proper recollection about the she-elf whose image had fascinated Sigrid for what felt like a lifetime.

Sigrid was half certain that he couldn’t even tell them apart, though would never admit it.

There is noise, and finally the doors open, the party of elves are all there- tall as the trees, and more beautiful than any man or woman that she had ever seen.

Though none of them are the she-elf from before, the one who had been called Tauriel.

She presses to her feet at the sight of them, curtseys like a proper princess ought to, even though the motions have always felt weirdly stiff and foreign to her, before inquiring upon the status of Tauriel.

“She’s alive and well in the Greenwood,” one of the elves eventually answers her, his tone almost dismissive, there are thing he’s not saying- secret conversations that Sigrid may not entirely be privy to, but she has a feeling that in times like this that may have been for the best.

Still, she had a mission in mind, had decided on this moons before, a letting to give to the next set of elves that stopped by their home, and she produces the letter from her pocket not, a letting with wrinkled corners, and familiar words.

“Will you take this to her,” Sigrid asks, already pushing the letter into one of their hands, “it’s a thank you, nothing too special, but she showed me kindness, once upon a time.”

\---

She doesn’t expect anything to come from it, maybe a letter in return the next time the elves stop by, but nothing more than that. In fact, she had resolved not to expect anything, to accept that the hand she was going to be dealt in life would be an empty one.

The next time Bain grumbled about elves she did not even bother to wait for them, instead she went about her day as usual: sewing, playing silly games with Tilda, taking long walks through the gardens when she was feeling particularly whimsical, but nothing too special.

Except it’s then as she is walking through the gardens, that she realizes she’s not entirely alone.

Sigrid won’t be able to say how later she knew this.

She’ll claim it was the sound of footsteps, but that cannot be right, for elves are said to walk so softly that they can stand stop the snow without falling through. Not that Sigrid has had any experiences with snow, but she imagines the image to be an angelic one.

Though in truth, what it was that alerted her of a change, was a light, something distinct and beautiful that had stood out from the green leaves of the garden.

_Fire._

That had been her first thought, that something had been on fire, but the hues were finer than that, shifting in the light, and that was how she knew.

“Did you get my letter,” Sigrid asks, even before the she-elf has made her presence known.

Though then she does.

She looks different than the last time Sigrid had seen her.

The first word that comes to her mind is to say that the she-elf looks older, but that cannot be entirely right, for elves do not age, not as proper people do, at least that is what the stories Sigrid heard had always told.

But there is something there, she swears, it’s a look that she sometimes sees on her own face, when she looks in the mirror and thinks how not even a year has gone by and yet her whole world has changed to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.

“You have a way with words, your highness.”

“Sigrid,” she insists, “you must call me Sigrid, and we must be friends or perhaps more with time- I would like that very much, to be close with you.”

She’s being too forward, too honest perhaps, but then Tauriel smiles in return and nothing else matters after that point.

\---

Being friends is simple and easy.

They exchange letters, letters that Sigrid keeps in a locked box in her room.

They exchange gossip, Sigrid speaking of the court and her siblings, while Tauriel talks of the elf king and an irresponsible prince. They both agree that princes are by far the most irresponsible types of creatures.

They exchange tips and tricks, Tauriel teaches her to use a bow and arrow on one lazy summer day, and Sigrid teachers her a recipe that used to be her mothers, in a kitchen much larger than the one she originally learned it in.

They are friends, nothing more, for that is all maidens ought to be, even if some nights when Sigrid lays away refusing to sleep, she imagines a life she could have, where they were not both maidens.

\---

She is not certain why she does it, they’re sitting in the gardens talking about everything and nothing at once, and suddenly she just leans across the space between them, slowly giving the she-elf plenty of time to move away even if she had not superior reflexes and speed, but she doesn’t move.

Their lips press together, in something that is simple and innocent, and she could laugh it off later as a custom of men, something innocent and between friends.

In fact, Sigrid intends to do just that, when she pulls back the words are there in the front of her mind, plenty of excuse that she could come up with.

Though the excuses seem irrelevant when Tauriel’s eyes meet hers and there’s such emotion there.

This time it is not Sigrid that leans forward, at least she does not think it is, but there are lips upon hers that are soft and taste of sweet wine.

Their kisses do not stay sweet for long, they deepen into something more, and she feels like she is falling, her whole world could be burning in dragon flame right now and she would not even care if she could just stay here in this moment kissing Tauriel for the rest of eternity.

Though they must break apart for air eventually, or at least Sigrid must, and it is then with a smile on her lips and laughter in her eyes that she says, “we must do this again something,” her voice carrying a slightly worried tone, a question that is there ever so subtly.

“Yes,” Tauriel says, her own voice giddy as well, pleasant and soft like the rustling of the wind, and graceful in a way Sigrid could never have hoped to be, “that would be a dream come true.”

\---

She measures her days and hours by how often the elves come to stay, a month or two must seem like nothing for them, a mere blink of an eye but for Sigrid it seems to last forever. S

he sees a tomorrow that is so far off, something that could never be reached, no matter how hard she stretches out her hand before her eyes, her fingers always seem to grasp onto empty air and nothingness.

That is until a hand slips in between hers, fingers long and graceful, pulling her off from the sidelines at the winter solstice celebration.

There are hands on her hips and whispers in her ears, and from the members of the court around them, but Sigrid could care less about the matters of any of them, because the one being in the whole of middle earth that means anything to her is there, holding onto her hand and spinning her to the music until she feels dizzy.

She sits down for mere moments, never waiting too long before she is up again, unwilling to let Tauriel away from her for too long, not now that they are together again after months apart.

They dance the night away, there under the glowing paper lights.

And if her feet are sore in the morning, then it would all have been worth it, to have experienced that night.

She could relive the memory of the celebration for as long as it took till Tauriel returned again, until the spring brought flowers to the garden once more, and the elves brought their strange songs to her father’s now extravagant halls.

Her fingers curl against the she-elf’s wrist as the night draws to a close, and she finds the words, “stay the night,” come out of her lips without even having prepared for it.

Truth be told, all of that dancing is nothing prepared for the nights they lay side by side, doing nothing but being around each other.

It’s then that, for the first time since a dragon burnt down the place she had called home almost her whole life, she is able to find the calm that is sleep without nightmares plaguing her dream.

\---

There are nights now that aren’t as lonely, when she closes her eyes and sees the fire and the burning, hears the sounds of a dragon over head - there are hands that encircle hers, a warm embrace that keeps her safe.

She knows that she’s crying, burying her face in the she-elf’s shoulder, until the shaking stops.

It will eventually, as is inevitable.

Sigrid keeps her eyes open, focusing on the fiery red of Tauriel’s hair, the color that is not so unlike the fire she sees in her dreams.

It’s haunting and welcoming at the same time.

There are hands soft on her back that rub circles into her skin, until her panic resists.

Tauriel’s voice is light and soft, singing songs that Sigrid does not know the words to, could not have even understood in her wildest fantasies, but they are soothing like a warm blanket wrapping around her and protecting her from the horrors that are out there in the world.

It may have taken hours until she fell asleep again, the sun rising and letting hints of light into her bedroom, but when she eventually does fall into a peaceful slumber again.

Tauriel’s soft songs filling her dreams, so that the fire behind her eyelids isn’t as terrifying as before, but a comforting and familiar warmth.

\---

If her life were simple she would be able to live like this forever, doing her duties by day, and sneaking off to the gardens with Tauriel when the moonlight begins to show.

If she were lucky, nobody would question her about it, they would simply accept that this was how she wanted to live her life - in peace where nobody could tell her how things _ought_ to be or what she _should_ be doing with her spare time.

But she should have learned by now that her life was not as simple as she had imagined it to be years ago, her life would never be simple, and this would just be something that Sigrid would have to accept no matter how much it pained her.

\---

That is all anybody thinks this is.

A silly notion that she has gotten into her head, because she is a silly girl - a princess she will remind them, though she had never felt like she lived up to the term - who does not understand the ways of the world.

Her Da tells her that she is a grown woman now, that she must understand that these are how things work, how lasting peace is made.

She cannot find the words to tell him, to explain that she is not like Tilda, she does not see the fine men in their finely pressed jackets and imagine what it would be like rule over their castle, or to be swept up into a loving embrace.

She already has one who sweeps her into such embraces, and the thought of losing Tauriel, losing the relationship they have - this something more than friendship - is something she refuses to even consider.

So Sigrid storms out of the room and locks herself away in the room that doesn’t feel like home until the sun has long set.

She makes a decision that night, voices the words that only she can hear, but they are there, in the air before her and she cannot take them back now, not that she would ever want to.

\---

The next time the elves come to the castle she steals one of them away, one that she’s never paid proper mind to before, and asks all the question she has on her mind. About love, and rules, and being with the only person that matters to her for the rest of her life.

All of her questions are answered and explained, even if the elf tries to tell her that these are not that sort of questions a princess such as herself should be asking.

“You forget,” Sigrid says, “I have not always been a princess, nor do I intend to be one for the rest of my life.”

“Your lives are so short, what does it even matter,” is all he has to say on that matter.

She doesn’t let his words get to her, at least, she promises herself that she will not let that happen.

\---

There’s some man of great importance, he’s pointed out to her at the summer solstice.

“He would make a fine husband,” her sister says beside her, winding their fingers together, and looking out on a crowd of people all eager to see her.

They want her attention, her favor; the eldest daughter of the king is somebody of important.

She was never very important before, as the daughter of a simple fisherman from Laketown.

Tilda’s not nearly old enough to be saying those things, and Sigrid wants to point that out, to ask where her innocence has gone, but instead she purses her lips and says, “yes, I suppose, if I were after that sort of thing, he might be.”

She can see the question in Tilda’s features, but she runs a hand over her sister’s brow, there is no way to explain not properly anyway.

So she just squeezes the other girl’s hand, one last time, and slips down the steps towards where the celebration is in motion.

She moves past the men who clamor for her attention, when they ask for a dance she politely declines, saying “I already have a partner,” so many times that her throat nearly gets sore.

Until her partner silently materializes at her side, beautiful a lithe, looking as stunning as always and slipping a hand into hers before leading Sigrid onto the dance floor like they had done moons before.

“I was almost worried you wouldn’t show,” Sigrid says, her own self doubt creeping up into her words, “you took so long getting here that I nearly let one of those boys dance with me.”

“How trifling a thought that must have been,” Tauriel says, her voice light and seemingly without a care in the world.

“You know, next time, I just might,” she tilts her chin up definitely, before looking about the room, “oh, look at that one by the flowers, he would be a fine dancing partner I expect.”

“I had heard that men had poor taste in their dancing partners, but I had thought you were better than the rest of them,” Tauriel teases.

And that gets the first laugh out of Sigrid in nearly a week, “we are known to be incredibly fickle things from time to time,” she admits, “I would not worry about it too much.”

“I will try not to,” she just says, before twirling Sigrid around once more, and then again, and again.

They spend the night like that.

The frown on her Da’s face at the end of the night, seems to sting a bit less, because she can still feel a ghost of Tauriel’s fingers around her waist holding her close.

She dances in her stocking feet in her bedroom, all alone, but imaging that she is not alone in her room.

\---

“Run away with me,” she says, feeling a bit like a foolish child all over again, her boots have been kicked off along the shore, the hem of her dress no doubt getting dirty against the ground, but she takes Tauriel’s hand in her own and tugs her to the shore of the beach. “We’ll go somewhere that they can never find us again.”

“I was told to have you back by dinner,” Tauriel points out, though it is teasing and soft when she says it.

“I had a large lunch,” Sigrid insists, as though this is the only flaw in her plan, “please, just for the evening, let me forget about being a princess, and responsibilities, and my Da insisting that I ought to marry a nice lad with money and a castle, who-”

“You’re going to marry,” Tauriel cuts her off, tone brisk and confused all at once.

And Sigrid shakes her head, because this is the one thing she knows for certain, “not if I can help it, now be a dear and help me steal one of the boats, before anybody notices that we’ve been gone too long, or that this isn’t entirely proper.”

Tauriel hasn’t yet moved, hesitating between one place and another, but Sigrid cannot bear to hesitate any longer - unlike the she-elf, she does not have forever and she is very much aware of that.

Now more than ever.

If Tauriel will not come with her then she will go alone, she’ll run until she never has to come back, live out on the waves like she always had before, instead of in stone castles that will never feel like home to her.

She pushes the boat from the sand to the water, determined to do this on her own, but it’s a moment later that there are hands against hers, soft but strong, and the boat moves so much easier.

“Thank you,” Sigrid says, when the boat meets the water, though she wants to say so much more than that, “I understand if you do not want-”

But her sentence goes unfinished; lips press against her, soft and sweet, but also desperate and hot, and Sigrid can barely seem to catch her breath, her heart stuttering against her chest.

“You underestimate the love I feel for you,” Tauriel says when they pull apart.

It’s the first time that they have used that word before.

_Love._

Such a grand and wonderful notion that she could not imagine being refused this time when she says, “run away with me.”

\---

“Let us make vows,” she says, her lips pressing into the tender skin of Tauriel’s shoulder, “not as men do, but as your kind do. I’ll swear myself to you, and then Da would not be able to marry me off and send me away to Gondor or some other far away land.”

Tauriel doesn’t respond at first, and Sigrid wonders if this is what rejection feels like. She has never had much experience with it before, never having wanted to affection of boys as she grew, and never finding a woman who she had felt such a sincere connection with before. Though even without the experience she knows the elf’s silence must add up to something.

The waves rocking against their little boat is the only sound for a while, and she opens her mouth to say something else, to play her comments off as mere follies, but then Tauriel speaks up, after what seems like an eternity, saying, “our vows are not as innocent as you might hope.”

“I swear them all the same,” Sigrid insists, “you would have to teach me the proper words, however if you would then I will.”

“It is not just words we use to make our promises,” Tauriel says, “to swear yourself to another, you mean to say-”

“Marriage! Though two maids cannot properly, but we could find a way.”

“Among my kind, they can,” Tauriel explains, “there are words and then movements of the body which are most intimate.”

Sigrid’s hand curls in Tauriel’s tunic, pulling the she-elf towards her ever so softly, but bringing their lips together in a motion that is not soft in the slightest. Her kiss is joined with equal fervor, and this should surely be proof that their bonding is necessary, that Sigrid could not live with any other by her side.

When they inevitably break apart, she finds her words again, “I have asked these questions before, to others, without the modesty a young woman such as myself ought to have. Since then, I have imagined a great many times what this would be like, to swear myself to you in words and body, please you cannot refuse me no. I do not know how I could bear it.”

“Thankfully the thought of that is one you won’t have to bear much longer, my love.”

\---

Years later, when her hands shake with age not eagerness, when her dreams come easier, and her nieces and nephews are the ones making fools of themselves running for the hills in their courtroom dresses, she’ll smile a soft smile of her own.

They’ll steal another one of the boats, the little wooden ones that remind her of Laketown and a time before that has been long lost now, and push it out past the shore to a place where dreams come true, to a place that is all their own.

She now understands the words that her love sings to her, the songs so familiar that she could sing along to them herself had she wanted to.

Laying there, with her love beside her, the sunshining down upon them, she could almost close her eyes and live forever in this moment.

One day, she just might.

 


End file.
